Monash Energy

Monash Energy is a proposed coal-to-liquid fuel project incorporating Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) which has been proposed by a joint venture of Shell and Anglo American. The project is proposed to be located near Loy Yang. The project is currently on hold.

Background
APEL was a project-specific company. The company proposed to build a $6billion power plant that will turn coal into gas, producing liquid fuels and generate electricity, with the carbon dioxide being geosequested.

APEL says its electricity generator will produce only 25 per cent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by existing brown coal plants. APEL chief executive officer, Pearce Bowman, stated: "it would take two years for the company to complete feasibility studies… and prove it could pass the necessary State Government and environmental approvals. It would take another three years to build the project - which means the plant will not be commissioned before 2007."

In 2003, APEL, with its value now greatly increased, sold 20 per cent of the company to Anglo American for an undisclosed price. In 2004, Anglo bought out the remaining 80 per cent, for what one source says was a fee of $52 million, of which Alan Blood received about $20 million.

Another source however, says that the company sold for a total of more than $100 million, with an undisclosed amount going directly to Alan Blood.

Anglo then went into a joint venture with Shell to form Monash Energy. In 2006, Monash Energy re-announced what was essentially the original proposals: a new coal mine, drying and gasification plant, carbon dioxide capture and storage and a gas-to-liquids plan, to be operational by 2008. A year later in 2009, a company source said of the project: "it's not commercially viable."

Despite expired deadlines and unmet promises, the State Government upgraded Monash’s exploration license to a mining license. The granting of a mining license is a decision made at the discretion of the Minister "based on the company meeting all its requirements", However, in the background information on the 2002 coal allocation tender the government had stated that "mining licenses will not even be considered until successful tenderers have completed all the research and development required as a condition of the exploration license."

Documentation demonstrating these conditions have been met, or otherwise, is not available to the public. It is however known, as outlined below, that the CCS component of the project is not viable. The APEL-Monash Energy 2002 coal allocation project commitments have not materialized.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Researching coal in Victoria
 * Victoria and coal


 * Australia and coal
 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Carbon Capture and Storage in Australia
 * New South Wales and coal
 * Queensland and coal

Monash Energy submissions

 * Monash Energy, "MRSDA Review", Submission to the Review of the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act 1990, June 26, 2009. (Pdf)
 * Monash Energy, "Monash Energy response to Green Paper", September 10, 2008.